House of Anjou

“ But he who reigns must fight. The Duke of Burgundy, ill content to see a prince of the house of Anjou, the brother-in-law of Charles of Valois, established between Burgundy and Flanders, stirred up against René the Count of Vaudémont, who was a claimant of the inheritance of Lorraine. The Angevin policy rendered a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France difficult. Thus was René of Anjou involved in the quarrels of his father-in-law of Lorraine. It befell that in this year, 1429, he was waging war against the citizens of Metz, the War of the Basketful of Apples. ”

“ Less than one hundred burghers lost their lives.
Anjou, as he looked on at a distance, was bitterly reproached for his treason by several of the high-minded gentlemen about his person, to whom he had not dared to confide his plot. The Duke of Montpensier protested vehemently that he washed his hands of the whole transaction, whatever might be the issue. He was responsible for the honor of an illustrious house, which should never be stained, he said, if he could prevent it, with such foul deeds. ”

“ The evil influences which must have surrounded his boyhood, whether it had been passed in his father’s house, or, as seems more probable, in the court of Philip and Bertrada, seem, instead of developing the worse tendencies of his nature, only to have brought out the better ones into more active working by sheer force of opposition. Politically, however, there can be no doubt that the peculiar circumstances of his early life led to important results, by reviving and strengthening the old ties between Anjou and the Crown which had somewhat slackened in Fulk Rechin’s days. ”

“ But neither the wrath of Heaven nor the curses of men broke with a single mishap the fifty years of his success. At his accession Anjou was the least important of the greater provinces of France. At his death it stood, if not in extent, at least in real power, first among them all. ... His overthrow of Brittany on the field of Conquereux was followed by the gradual absorption of Southern Touraine. ... His great victory at Pontlevoi crushed the rival house of Blois ”

“ Most of the characteristics of Anjou are without their like elsewhere, and opulent Anjou of ancient France has to-day a departmental etiquette in many things quite different from that of other sections.
A magnificent agricultural province, it has been further enriched by liberal proprietors; a land of aristocracy and the church, it has ever been to the fore in political and ecclesiastical matters; and to-day the spirit of industry and progress are nowhere more manifest than here in the ancient province of Anjou. ”

“ A consultation was held at Angers by the Barons and nobles of Anjou, Maine, Lorraine, Barrois, and Provence, with respect to their beloved Sovereign’s prostration, and a unanimous decision was reached—a second marriage with a young consort, comely, cultivated, and of good fame. A petition was presented to the King praying him to yield to the advice of his “right loyal lieges,” that he should look out for some noble and virtuous “pucelle qui fust à son gré.” ”

“ The stability of the throne and the welfare of its subjects having been secured, the Queen turned her attention to the matrimonial prospect of her eldest son. Some years before King Louis’s death, Jean “sans Peur,” Duke of Burgundy,—in days when the Courts of Angers and Dijon saw eye to eye, and the States were not rivals in the direction of the general policy of the French Sovereigns,—had confided his little daughter Catherine to the charge of the eminent Queen of Sicily-Anjou, to be brought up with her own girls, the Princesses Marie and Yolande. ”

“ On the death of King René, his eldest daughter, Yolande, Countess of Vaudémont, claimed and assumed the title of Queen of Sicily, Jerusalem, Naples, and Aragon, but took no steps to enforce her claim upon that vulture monarch, Louis XI., who at once seized upon the lands of his uncle, and styled himself Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence. Countess Yolande was her father’s child, tender and retiring. She craved the charms of the quiet life, and consequently, at the convocation of the Estates of Anjou and Provence, she renounced her title, and made it over to her son René. ”

“ Renatus, that the new deliverance might presage a new birth of hope for France, and that the holy one,—the patron of child-bearing mothers who sought male heirs,—might supplicate at the throne of heaven for a baby-boy.
Baptized in the Cathedral of St. Maurice eight days after birth, the little Prince had for sponsors no foreign potentates, but men of good renown [60] and substance in Anjou: Pierre, Abbé de St. Aubin; Jean, Seigneur de l’Aigle; Guillaume, Chevalier des Roches; and Mathilde, Abbée de Nôtre Dame d’Angers. The Queen by proxy named her child “René—reconnaissance à Messire St. ”

“ Thence forward he decorated the walls and stain-glazed the windows of his various castles and palaces—Bar-le-Duc, Nancy, Angers, Saumur, Reculée, Tarascon, Marseilles, and Aix. Every bastide and maison inhabited by his Queens and himself was also similarly adorned, and many coloured church windows were due to his gentle art. Alas that so few vestiges of these admirable labours remain! French mobs are proverbial for iconoclastic propensities, and no land has suffered more than France from the suicidal mania of her sans-culottes. ”

“ Alas! when human things appear to promise peace and joy, there ever comes over the scene the pall of Providence. War again broke out between France and England, but now the French held their own and more; and King René, revived in military ardour, led the victorious vanguard, and crowned his bays of triumph by new palms of peace.
Sad news came to him, however, when in Normandy, from his ancestral Angers. His devoted and dearly loved Queen, Isabelle, was laid low with illness. Stalking fever had crossed the castle moat and fixed its baneful touch upon the royal châtelaine. ”

“ But business is business even in royal circles, and the Estates of Lorraine and Bar were assembled by the Sovereigns to consider and fulfil the terms of René’s charter of liberty. The crux was the amount of the money ransom, and how to raise it. Both duchies were stripped bare of resources, prolonged wars had impoverished the nobles, and had brought upon all classes great privations. In Anjou and Provence much the same conditions existed, and Queen Yolande had as much as she could do to make all ends meet. ”

“ Upon King René’s succession to the throne of Sicily-Anjou, Queen Yolande continued to act as his Lieutenant-General for Anjou and Provence, and left negotiations for his release to the young Queen-Duchess Isabelle, who was very much more favourably placed, and near at hand to serve the royal prisoner’s interests. She spent most of her time in Anjou, but paid many visits to Marseilles, her favourite residence in Provence. ”

“ Popular imagination, with its unerring instinct, rightly seized upon the Black Count as the embodiment of Angevin glory and greatness. The credit of the astute politician, the valiant warrior, the consummate general, the strenuous ruler—all this is his due, and something more; the credit of having, by the initiative force of genius, launched Anjou upon her career with an impetus such as no opposing power could thenceforth avail to check. ”

“ He desired René to proceed at once to Angers to obtain Queen Yolande’s consent to the matrimonial contract between himself and Princess Isabelle. Everything went merrily, like the marriage-bells which soon enough pealed forth all over Lorraine, Barrois, and Anjou, at the auspicious nuptials. The final arrangements were completed, and René and Isabelle were betrothed at the Castle of St. Mihiel, and on October 20, 1420, married at the Cathedral of Nancy by the Bishop of Toul, Henri de Ville, Duke Charles’s cousin. ”

“ No regent had been appointed, and the four royal dukes, the young king’s uncles of Anjou, Burgundy, Bourbon, and Berri, began to strive for power.
In 1382 Anjou, who had been suffered to hold the regency, sought to enforce an unpopular tax on the merchants of Paris. The people revolted, armed themselves with the loaded clubs (maillotins) stored in the Hôtel de Ville for use against the English, attacked the royal officers and opened the prisons. ”

“ Nothing could be more brutalising or more brutal: but the savage traits of civil war are less revolting than the ghastly revelries of the Court. All the chiefs were alike--neither the King, nor Henry of Navarre, nor Anjou, nor even the strict Catholic Guise, disdained to wallow in debauch." Having quarreled with his brother, the King, "Anjou fled, in the beginning of 1578, to Angers, where, finding that there was a prospect of amusement in the Netherlands, he turned his back on the high Catholics, and renewed friendship with the Huguenot chiefs. ”

“ Charles and Marie should be betrothed, and Mary should be Queen of France! Yolande broached the subject to King Charles, and at once gained his cordial consent, but tactfully she left to him the furthering of the project. Upon December 18, 1415, Charles of France and Marie of Sicily-Anjou were privately affianced in the Royal Chapel of the Castle of Bourges. France was in the throes of revolution and dissolution; the terrible defeat at Azincourt, on October 24 that same year, had paralyzed the military power of the French States, and was the ultimate cause of King Charles’s insanity. ”

“ We found my brother Anjou at Plessis-les-Tours, with the principal officers of his army, who were the flower of the princes and nobles of France. In their presence he delivered a harangue to the King, giving a detail of his conduct in the execution of his charge, beginning from the time he left the Court. His discourse was framed with so much eloquence, and spoken so gracefully, that it was admired by all present. It appeared matter of astonishment that a youth of sixteen should reason with all the gravity and powers of an orator of ripe years. ”

“ High-souled and condescending, she brought her enemies to her feet, only to raise them her warmest friends. Talented beyond the average of Princesses, she had also the charm of winsome gaiety, and proved herself a worthy spouse and companion for her gallant and clever consort René. Tall, slim, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a skin of satin softness, the “Pride of Lorraine” won all hearts and turned many a head.
To Louis, Cardinal de Bar, was due the accomplishment of an idea suggested by Queen Yolande with respect to the future of her second son, René d’Anjou. ”

“ She is credited with the characteristically graceful acts of reclothing the fugitive, and according to Queen Margaret precedence and homage. King René’s handiwork in all these enterprises was varied and extensive. He painted the windows, he carved the escutcheons of arms, and he fashioned the hinges and locks of the doors. The Comptes prove by very many entries his royal excellence [337] as a craftsman as well as an artist. Scarcely a church in Barrois, Lorraine, Anjou, and Provence, but bore evidence of the kingly artistry. ”

“ Henry of England and Margaret of Anjou were married by Cardinal Beaufort in the abbey church of Titchfield on April 22. The bride was just sixteen years of age—already a woman, but with the heart of a man. Most extraordinary presents were showered upon the young Queen: a lion in a cage, a score of hedgehogs, a dozen thick all-wool blankets, two tuns of English wine, a suit of bronze silver armour, several chairs,—two of state,—five young lambs’ fleeces, and so forth. Then the royal progress began to the capital. ”

“ It is a relief to turn from this castle to that southern fortress which the Counts made their home. A glance at the flat tame expanse of Anjou northward of the Loire explains at once why its sovereigns made their [Pg 377] favourite sojourn in the fairer districts south of the river. There are few drives more enjoyable than a drive along the Vienne to the royal retreat of Chinon. The country is rich and noble, deep in grass and maize and corn, with meadows set in low broad hedgerows, and bare scratchy vineyards along the slopes. ”

“ Women and children were in a special sense committed to their care. The poor and ailing were to engage their best offices. Debts of every sort and gambling under every guise were absolutely forbidden. With respect to the fair sex, the code of rules had in golden letters the following order: “De ne mesdire des femmes de quelques estats quelles soient pour chose qui doibue d’advenir.” The knights first impanelled, having taken their oaths of obedience and accepted service, departed from Anjou, and made their rendezvous at the King’s Castle of Tarascon on August 11. ”

“ This was the time in which Anjou was engaged in that strange courtship of Elizabeth which caused so much amusement and excited so much anger and alarm. While the United Provinces were discussing the terms of his sovereignty, he was in England. While he was absent, Parma besieged and reduced Tournay, the Prince of Orange, being most inadequately supported by those whose liberties he was doing his best to protect. The fact is, the disunion of the Provinces led to their being attacked and reduced in detail. Anjou returned to Flushing on February 10, 1582, and was inaugurated at Antwerp. ”

“ That same day she rode out with the King and threw a lance in the meadow with so fine a grace that the Duke of Alençon, marvelling, made her a present of a horse. [712]
A few days later this young noble took her to the Abbey of Saint-Florent-lès-Saumur, [713] the church of which was so greatly admired that it was called La Belle d'Anjou. Here in this abbey there dwelt at that [Pg i.185] time his mother and his wife. It is said that they were glad to see Jeanne. But they had no great faith in the issue of the war. ”